


Names

by Blossomwitch



Category: Saiyuki (Anime & Manga), Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Gen, Gen Work, Headcanon, Reincarnation, Short, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blossomwitch/pseuds/Blossomwitch
Summary: Many people know that Goku was named by Konzen. What only one person realizes is that centuries later, Goku returned the favor. A brief exploration of the karma that binds these characters, the trauma of not belonging to anyone, and a profound truth hiding in plain sight.
Relationships: Genjo Sanzo & Son Goku
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Names

**Author's Note:**

> (Do y'all every so often glance at a fandom you haven't been active in for a decade and go "holy shit, I have a million more things to say about that?" No? Just me? Okay then.)

He loses his name at the same time he loses everything else that matters.

In the wake of that loss, he calls himself Genjo Sanzo. The other priests accept it, but it doesn't feel like a name. It feels like a bitter insult. A placeholder, a way to designate himself, because Kouryuu is dead and 'The Man Who Let His Teacher Die And So Became A Sanzo' is too long for people to say. Genjo will never be his name.

He leaves the temple, and for many years he has no need for a name. He wakes alone, sleeps alone, wanders and struggles and despairs alone. The people he fights in self-defense have no need for something to call him by. The strangers he occasionally asks for directions take one look at what he's wearing and call him 'Lord High Priest.' It isn't a name, but it serves the function of letting someone address him, so it will do.

Even when he reluctantly takes up residence at a new temple, staying in one place for the first time in years, the people living there refer to him as 'Lord High Priest.' He doesn't ever tell them to call him something else. He's been nameless for so long that he no longer realizes it.

He doesn't realize it until the day a child, recently met and recently rescued, asks for his name. He has to think for a moment about how to respond. Eventually he gives the child a string of titles, and is met with a look of complete incomprehension. He repeats himself. “Uh... how 'bout Sanzo?” the child asks.

'Sanzo' is a title, not a name, but he couldn't care less. He tells the kid to do what he wants.

He has absolutely no idea what he's setting in motion.

It's not long before two other people who aren't monks enter his life, and neither of them is the slightest bit inclined to address him as 'Lord High Priest.' Hakkai and Gojyo use 'Sanzo' like it's his name, although he's certain that Hakkai, at least, knows it's not. After awhile he realizes they're only parroting Goku, taking their cue from him because they have no idea Goku is the only one who calls him that.

But then, a strange thing starts to happen. As he leaves the temple more and more often, and takes Goku with him, he starts to hear himself called 'Sanzo' everywhere. By new acquaintances, by new enemies, by people in the streets. On one occasion he is gently questioned by a senior monk, who asks if whether choosing to be known only by the title his master left him, completely disassociating from anything but that, is not inadvertently giving the impression of arrogance, of egotistically claiming the title for himself alone. Sanzo doesn't hear him past the word _choose_. The monk goes away with the sound of bleak laughter in his ears.

By the time Sanzo undertakes the journey west, the name Goku calls him is the name he calls himself in his own mind and heart. He only vaguely remembers that this has not always been true, and doesn't realize the significance of it. None of them do; how could they?

The only one who understands that significance is the one who defied the gods to leave Goku the knowledge of his name. The name he begged Konzen to give him. The goddess of mercy watches them from above, awed and amused at the way karma binds. How a nameless priest keeps a promise he's forgotten and reaches out first this time, freeing the one who freed him, receiving a name from the one he named. That name, _one_ _who perceives that which is unseen,_ is the only thing left to Goku, and he has already begun to fulfill its promise.


End file.
